Android – Using Picasso with custom disk cache

androidcachingpicasso

In Volley library, the NetworkImageView class requires an ImageLoader that handles all the image requests by searching for them inside an ImageCache implementation, the user is free to choose how the cache should work, the location and the name of the images.

I'm switching from Volley to Retrofit, and for the images I decided to try Picasso.

With the former library, I had a String parameter in each of my items containing the image URL, then I used myNetworkImageView.setImageUrl(item.getURL()) and it was able to determine if image was cached on disk. If the image existed in cache folder, the image was loaded, otherwise it was downloaded and loaded.

I would like to be able to do the same with Picasso, is it possible with Picasso APIs or should I code such feature by myself?

I was thinking to download the image to a folder (the cache folder), and use Picasso.with(mContext).load(File downloadedimage) on completion. Is this the proper way or are there any best practices?

Best Answer

Picasso doesn't have a disk cache. It delegates to whatever HTTP client you are using for that functionality (relying on HTTP cache semantics for cache control). Because of this, the behavior you seek comes for free.

The underlying HTTP client will only download an image over the network if one does not exist in its local cache (and that image isn't expired).

That said, you can create custom cache implementation for java.net.HttpUrlConnection (via ResponseCache or OkHttp (via ResponseCache or OkResponseCache) which stores files in the format you desire. I would strongly advise against this, however.

Let Picasso and the HTTP client do the work for you!

You can call setIndicatorsEnabled(true) on the Picasso instance to see an indicator from where images are being loaded. It looks like this:

If you never see a blue indicator, it's likely that your remote images do not include proper cache headers to enable caching to disk.

Related Solutions

Android – How to save an activity state using the save instance state

You need to override onSaveInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) and write the application state values you want to change to the Bundle parameter like this:

@Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  super.onSaveInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
  // Save UI state changes to the savedInstanceState.
  // This bundle will be passed to onCreate if the process is
  // killed and restarted.
  savedInstanceState.putBoolean("MyBoolean", true);
  savedInstanceState.putDouble("myDouble", 1.9);
  savedInstanceState.putInt("MyInt", 1);
  savedInstanceState.putString("MyString", "Welcome back to Android");
  // etc.
}

The Bundle is essentially a way of storing a NVP ("Name-Value Pair") map, and it will get passed in to onCreate() and also onRestoreInstanceState() where you would then extract the values from activity like this:

@Override
public void onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  super.onRestoreInstanceState(savedInstanceState);
  // Restore UI state from the savedInstanceState.
  // This bundle has also been passed to onCreate.
  boolean myBoolean = savedInstanceState.getBoolean("MyBoolean");
  double myDouble = savedInstanceState.getDouble("myDouble");
  int myInt = savedInstanceState.getInt("MyInt");
  String myString = savedInstanceState.getString("MyString");
}

Or from a fragment.

@Override
public void onViewStateRestored(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onViewStateRestored(savedInstanceState);
    // Restore UI state from the savedInstanceState.
    // This bundle has also been passed to onCreate.
    boolean myBoolean = savedInstanceState.getBoolean("MyBoolean");
    double myDouble = savedInstanceState.getDouble("myDouble");
    int myInt = savedInstanceState.getInt("MyInt");
    String myString = savedInstanceState.getString("MyString");
}

You would usually use this technique to store instance values for your application (selections, unsaved text, etc.).

Android – How to close/hide the Android soft keyboard programmatically

You can force Android to hide the virtual keyboard using the InputMethodManager, calling hideSoftInputFromWindow, passing in the token of the window containing your focused view.

// Check if no view has focus:
View view = this.getCurrentFocus();
if (view != null) {  
    InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager)getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
    imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(view.getWindowToken(), 0);
}

This will force the keyboard to be hidden in all situations. In some cases, you will want to pass in InputMethodManager.HIDE_IMPLICIT_ONLY as the second parameter to ensure you only hide the keyboard when the user didn't explicitly force it to appear (by holding down the menu).

Note: If you want to do this in Kotlin, use: context?.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE) as InputMethodManager

Kotlin Syntax

// Only runs if there is a view that is currently focused
this.currentFocus?.let { view ->
    val imm = getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE) as? InputMethodManager
    imm?.hideSoftInputFromWindow(view.windowToken, 0)
}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Android – How to save an activity state using the save instance state

Android – How to close/hide the Android soft keyboard programmatically

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